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Best beer and travel writing award 2015, 2011 -- British Guild of Beer Writers Awards
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 The Windsor Castle, Carshalton SM5 (London) London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southwest London: Other locations – Carshalton
Traditional pub (Shepherd Neame)
358 Carshalton Road, Carshalton SM5 3PT
T 020 8669 1191 w www.windsorcastlepub.com f WindsorCastleCarshalton
Open 1100 (1200 Sun)-2300 (2330 Fri-Sat, 2230 Sun). Children welcome until 1800.
Cask beer 6 (Shepherd Neame, Long Man, 2 sometimes local guests) Cask Marque.
Food Pub grub in bar, more upmarket restaurant menu, Outdoor Beer garden, Wifi.
Mon,Sat live music, Tue quiz, seasonal events, functions, beer festivals.
Carshalton is curiously well served by decent pubs, so this biggish place on a prominent corner of the main road between Sutton and Croydon is doing well to hold its own against stiff competition led by the excellent Hope (p216). It’s a homely, traditionally styled wood panelled former Charrington pub which, although now a single unevenly shaped walk-through space, retains some pleasant nooks and crannies. It also boasts a pleasant garden, a separate function room in an outbuilding, and a regular programme of live music.
Though it’s been part of the Shepherd Neame estate since 2009, the pub is still run as an independently managed leasehold. Besides three rotating Shep’s beers, the handpumps dispense regularly changing guests, usually including one from the Long Man brewery in the Sussex Downs, and local choices from brewers like Croydon’s Clarence & Fredericks besides better known options from Brains, Sharp’s or St Austell. All are kept in excellent condition as the wall full of local CAMRA awards demonstrates.
National Rail Carshalton Beeches, Carshalton Cycling LCN+ 75, link to NCN 20
 The Queens Head, Downe BR6 (London) London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southeast London: Other locations – Downe
Contemporary pub (Independent)
25 High Street, Downe BR6 7US
T 01689 852145 w www.queensheaddowne.com
Open 1200-2300 (2330 Fri-Sat, 2230 Sun). Children welcome until early evening.
Cask beer 4 (Adnams, Harveys, Sharp’s, Westerham), Also Malts and specialist spirits.
Food Upmarket pub grub, Outdoor Small front terrace, beer garden, Wifi. No disabled toilet but largely flat access.
Occasional quiz and karaoke, seasonal events, functions, darts.
Red buses, albeit on an irregular timetable, stop in the centre of Downe, but though it’s only minutes from Orpington, it feels a world away. One of the prettiest, and arguably the most historically interesting, of Bromley’s scattered villages, it is justly celebrated as the home of Charles Darwin, who lived and worked at the old manor, Down House – the principle reason why the area is now on the list of candidates for World Heritage Site status. The great scientist is commemorated by a plaque on the corner of the pretty part-12th century village church overlooking the village square, though you can only speculate what the vicar of the day might have made of his theories of the origin of species.
Darwin would almost certainly have popped in to the Queens Head next door to the church, where now he’s commemorated in the Darwin bar. The pub’s history goes back to 1565, the year Queen Elizabeth paid a visit, and although it’s been worked on extensively since, most recently with the additional of sofas and armchairs, it retains a rustic feel, not to mention customers in green wellies trailing Labradors behind them.
Under new ownership since 2011, it always stocks a local cask guest, usually from Westerham, alongside the well kept likes of Doom Bar, Sussex Best and various Adnams beers. The latter’s distilled spirits are also on sale. Understandably food (sausage and mash, haddock fish cakes, 1970s favourite prawn cocktail) is a big deal but drinkers, and walkers, are welcome.
Pub trivia. The attached Suhaili restaurant commemorates a lesser known local hero, Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man to circumnavigate the Earth non-stop and single handed, a feat he accomplished in a ketch of that name in 1968-69.
National Rail Bromley South, Orpington (then bus) Bus Downe Church (146 Bromley South, R8 Orpington) Walking Cudham and Leaves Green Circular Walks, link to London Loop
 The Old Nuns Head, London SE15. London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southeast London: Other locations – Nunhead
Contemporary pub (Punch)
15 Nunhead Green SE15 3QQ
T 020 7639 4007 w www.theoldnunshead.co.uk f TheOldNunsHead tw theoldnunshead
Open 1200-2300 (0100 Fri-Sat). Children very welcome until 2100.
Cask beer 4 (Hogs Back, 3 often local guests) Cask Marque, Other beer 3 keg, 5 bottles.
Food Limited but imaginative seasonal menu, children’s menu, Outdoor Rear terrace, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Mon mums’ club, Wed open mic, Thu quiz, Fri monthly comedy, beer festivals, occasional live music & DJs, classes, functions, food promotions, board games.
Nunhead, on the hilly ridge south of Peckham and New Cross, is one of London’s more tucked away suburbs, and for a while one of its poorer ones, although gentrification is slowly creeping in. Historically it had monastic connections, and its name happily derives from that of a pub, the Nuns Head (local legends linking the name to the story of a beheaded holy woman are sensational but unreliable). On John Rocque’s 1762 map you can see the pub and a scattering of cottages among green fields, clustered around Nunhead Green. The green still survives as a little strip of public space, but the pub now known as the Old Nuns Head, though on a site which has been put to this use since at least the 17th century, is a 1930s Brewer’s Tudor affair, with a half-timbered upper floor contributing to the villagey feel of this conservation area.
The pub has been well looked after under new management since 2010, with a cosy interior making good use of warm wood panelling and fireplaces, and lots of stuff going on. Given the limitations of a Punch tie it also does well for beer, often stocking local brews from the likes of By the Horns, East London, London Fields and Sambrook’s alongside choices from the pubco’s guest beer programme sourced from, say, Batemans, Exmoor, Jennings, Mordue or Stonehenge. A handful of bottles including BrewDog, Meantime and Singha, and Staropramen and Hoegaarden on keg, widens options, while a beer festival every few months opens things up still further. The pub is also linked to the London Craft Beer Rising event.
Visitor note. The area is also noted for Nunhead Cemetery, one of London’s “Magnificent Seven” suburban cemeteries created following new laws in 1832, once derelict and now partly managed as a nature reserve; and as the former home of Brock’s fireworks factory, commemorated in the name of another pub on the green, the Pyrotechnist’s Arms.
National Rail Nunhead Cycling LCN+ 25, Forest Hill & Peckham Walking Green Chain Walk
 Bambuni, London SE15 London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southeast London: Other locations – Nunhead
Shop, bar (Independent)
143 Evelina Road SE15 3HB
T 020 7732 4150 w www.bambuni.co.uk tw BambuniNunhead
Open 0900 (1000 Sun)-1730 (1600 Sun, closed Mon). Children welcome.
Cask beer None, Other beer 90+ bottles, Also Fine wines including refills, tea and coffee.
Food Cheese, charcuterie, sandwiches, deli goods, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Occasional tastings, bar nights, masterclasses.
The appearance of a specialist deli among a parade of bookies, convenience stores and launderettes is a sure sign of gentrification hitting a suburb. In Bambuni’s case, there’s the added bonus of several shelves full of top notch bottled beer, and a drink-in policy that means this small, clean and tidy shop doubles as a miniature daytime bar. Opening hours are extended into the evening on occasional “bar nights,” usually in conjunction with some other local event. A location just across Nunhead Green from the Old Nun’s Head pub, with whom they have partnered to run miniature local beer festivals, adds to the convenience.
The range is a roll call of UK craft brewers of the moment like Arbor, Buxton, Dark Star, Hardknott, Kernel, Mallinsons, Moor, Oakham, Redwillow, Saltaire, Summer Wine and Thornbridge, alongside rare Italians like Brewfist and Mastri Birrai Umbri. Enthusiastic owner Huey, who opened the shop, next door to long established and locally celebrated fishmonger Sopers, in September 2011, clearly knows his stuff.
National Rail Nunhead Cycling LCN+ 25, Forest Hill & Peckham Walking Green Chain Walk
 Hundred Crows Rising, London N1 London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Islington (Angel)
Gastropub (Elk in the Woods)
58 Penton Street N1 9PZ
T 020 7837 3891 w www.hundredcrowsrising.co.uk f Hundred-Crows-Rising tw 100crowsrising
Open 0900-2300. Children welcome.
Cask beer 4 (Old Dairy), Other beer 4 keg, 2 bottles, Also English and other wines, cocktails, hot drinks.
Food Gastro British and Mediterranean menu, Outdoor Benches on street, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Fri DJs, functions.
Opened in June 2012 round the corner from Chapel Market and only a short step from the wonderful new Craft Beer Co, this stripped back gastropub with a small but unusual beer range provides a potential workaround for Craft’s limited food offer. Four handpumps are usually dedicated to the products of Kent’s Old Dairy brewery, otherwise rarely seen in London, including exclusive house beer Murder a Crow and changing specials in a variety of styles. Besides lagers from Pilsner Urquell and Kozel on keg you’ll find the Curious beers brewed by Hepworth for Kent vineyard Chapel Down, plus bottled Erdinger.
A very interesting menu mixes British and Mediterranean influences, with imaginative sharing boards and main courses like marinated pork ribs, fish pie or bulgur and spinach pilaff, also available to take away. Look out for a comfy corner decorated with old bottles and sheepskin throws.
Pub trivia. Rather forebodingly, the traditional collective noun for a group of crows is a ‘murder’.
Underground Angel Cycling LCN+7 16, link to 8 and Regents Canal towpath Walking Jubilee Greenway, link to New River Path
 The Alleyns Head, London SE21. London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southeast London: Camberwell, Dulwich and Peckham
Contemporary pub (Ember/Mitchells & Butlers)
Park Hall Road SE21 8BW
T 020 8670 6540 w www.emberpubanddining.co.uk/thealleynsheadwestdulwich
Open 1000-2400. Children welcome if dining.
Cask beer 7-8 (Timothy Taylor, Wells & Young’s, up to 6 guests) Cask Marque, Other beer 2 bottles, Also A few wines.
Food Breakfasts, enhanced pub grub menu, Outdoor Large front terrace, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Tue/Sun quiz, occasional live music, seasonal events, food promotions.
The refurbishment of this huge old red brick pub on the not so leafy edge of leafy Dulwich Village in June 2011 contributed significantly to widening beer choice in a surprisingly underpubbed area. It’s been rejigged as part of Mitchells & Butlers’ Ember Inns chain of pub-restaurants, with a focus on an extensive menu of traditional comfort food, but the success that has greeted the widening of the beer range in other parts of the M&B estate (witness the number of Nicholson’s and Castle pubs mentioned in these listings) is clearly rubbing off, and the availability of up to ten real ales is proudly announced at the door.
Six to eight is more typical – besides Landlord and Young’s Bitter you might find St Austell Nicholson’s Pale Ale, local beers from Sambrook’s and guests from Purity, RCH, Wadworth and the like from a changing printed guest list. Decor is a little in the furniture catalogue category, but the big front terrace is a particularly attractive feature, and besides a large area with neatly set tables there is plenty of room for drinkers.
Insider tip. Sample all the real ales for only £2.50 a pint at the Monday night ale club.
National Rail West Dulwich Bus Ildersly Grove (3 West Dulwich, Crystal Palace) Cycling Link to LCN+ 23 Walking Link to Green Chain Walk
 The Skylark, Croydon CR0 (London). Pic: J D Wetherspoon. London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southeast London: Croydon
Contemporary pub (Wetherspoon)
34 South End, Croydon CR0 1DP
T 020 8649 9909 w www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/pubs/the-skylark tw skylarkcroydon
Open 0800-2400. Children welcome if dining until early evening.
Cask beer Up to 10 (Greene King, 8 sometimes local or unusual guests) Cask Marque, Other beer Usual Wetherspoon keg and bottles, Also Real cider and perry, usual Wetherspoon wines.
Food Wetherspoon menu, Outdoor Rear yard, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Regular Wetherspoon promotions, real ale club, brewery visits.
“We love real ale,” announces the chalkboard in this otherwise everyday shopfront Wetherspoons, among a strip of eateries along the southern stretch of Croydon’s main thoroughfare that’s recently been grandly dubbed the “Restaurant Quarter”. You might find that love expressed through beers sourced from Dark Star and local brewers Cronx, imaginative use of the wider JDW guest list and keen participation in the pubco’s festivals.
Further devotion is demonstrated by a real ale club that organises brewery trips and there are other community events and initiatives. Otherwise this huge and typically furnished pub is distinguished by a decent beer garden and a sweeping staircase with art deco stained glass detailing that leads to a large and rather pleasant gallery.
Pub trivia. It could be a reference to Percy Bysse Shelley or a reminder that the site of London’s first international airport is only a short hop away, but in fact the pub name is borrowed from a poem by early modernist Gerard Manley Hopkins, who knew the area well.
National Rail South Croydon Bus Spice’s Yard (numerous West/East Croydon) Cycling LCN+ 23 Walking Link to Vanguard Way, Wandle Trail
 The Craft Beer Co Islington, London N1 London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Islington (Angel)
Contemporary pub, specialist (Craft)
55 White Lion Street N1 9PP
e islington@thecraftbeerco.com w thecraftbeerco.com/location/islington-london f thecraftbeerco tw thecraftbeerco
Open 1200-2300 (2400 Thu, 0100 Fri-Sat, 2230 Sun). Children welcome until 1700.
Cask beer 10 (Kent, unusual guests), Other beer 22 keg, 100+ bottles, Also 14 wines, specialist spirits.
Food Scotch eggs & pies only, Outdoor Front terrace, side beer garden, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Impromptu piano, beer events, occasional live music, functions.
The expansion of the Craft Beer Co over the past couple of years to five branches (if you count the Cask in Pimlico) has been a trailblazer for the phenomenal surge in interest in craft and specialist beer in the UK in general and London in particular. This new Islington outlet represents another breakthrough, further upping the game in a part of London curiously bereft of such places before the Earl of Essex opened earlier this year.
Whereas the Crafts in Brixton and Clerkenwell are relatively small places, the N1 branch is a generously proportioned multi-roomed pub which, until recently, was an underachieving local known as the Lord Wolseley, delivering standard lagers and big screen TV to Arsenal fans. And this was despite a promising location just round the corner from Chapel Market and only a few minutes from Angel Tube.
The designers have tackled the broader canvas by giving the pub a more traditional look than its sister venues, with plenty of tables, stools and armchairs filling not only a main bar but a separate adjoining space where the business has at some point clearly expanded into a neighbouring house, and an extension at the back that’s ideal for tastings and functions. Deep green dominates the decor, as chosen by enthusiastic manager Emma, formerly of the Jolly Butchers. Only a few days after opening it already felt lived in, and busy with a good mix of people, from tattooed young hopheads to a tableful of bearded gents conforming to an older stereotype.
“British Ale will always be our number one passion,” declares the beer menu, a claim borne out by a range of ten casks featuring standout craft brewers like Magic Rock, Marble and Thornbridge, newcomers like Cromarty and Tiny Rebel, and a house pale supplied by Kent. Two ranks of keg taps divide into domestic – Beavertown, Dark Star, Leeds, more Magic Rock and Thornbridge – plus exclusives like a Mikkeller lager, and imported novelties from the likes of 8 Wired (New Zealand), Evil Twin (Denmark/US) and Port (US).
There’s not a wasted entry in the bottled list, divided roughly three ways between Belgium, the US and Scandinavia, with a good range of Kernel beers providing the few British entries. The Belgians are mainly first rate classics – Orval, Dupont, St Bernardus – and a good choice of lambics, including Tilquin and limited edition 3 Fonteinen bottles in the Armand 4 series (a mere £55). The Americans include numerous rarely seen brewers like Shorts and Sly Fox alongside heavy hitters like AeSmith, Cigar City, Green Flash and Southern Tier. Innovative cuckoo and small brewers like Evil Twin, Mikkeler and To Øl account for the northerners. Off sales are also provided, with a “buy five, get one free” offer.
While the beer range and quality keeps up the very high standard we’ve come to expect from Craft, the comfortable and expansive surroundings make this an instant contender for the best specialist beer bar in London. Some customers might find the decision to limit the food offer a regrettable one, but there are numerous options nearby, including Hundred Crows Rising.
Insider tip. A working piano is available to anyone able and willing to play it, with the possibility of a return slot for popular contributors.
Underground Angel Cycling LCN+7 16, link to 8 and Regents Canal towpath Walking Jubilee Greenway, link to New River Path
 The Royal Standard, Croydon CR0 (London). Pic: Royal Standard. London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southeast London: Croydon
Traditional pub (Fuller’s)
1 Sheldon Street, Croydon CR0 1SS
T 020 8688 9749 w www.royalstandard-croydon.co.uk
Open 1200-2400 (2300 Sun). Children welcome until early evening.
Cask beer 6 (Fuller’s, up to 2 guests) Cask Marque.
Food Good value pub grub lunches, sandwiches, Outdoor Small beer garden, Wifi.
Quiz, board games, darts, occasional comedy and live music.
In terms of beer choice, the Royal Standard might not be the best of Croydon’s handful of Fuller’s pubs – the Spreadeagle in the town centre has a bigger range of the brewery’s beers, and local guests too – but as an outstanding example of that vanishing breed, the proper community local, it’s a must.
On a quiet street only a sidestep from the main drag and under the shadow of the ugly 1960s Croydon Flyover, it occupies a solid white corner building with an imposing cornice but feels much more modest inside. The pub retains a three room layout, including a no nonsense public bar with a well used dartboard, and offers a warm and easygoing welcome.
Perfectly kept Chiswick, ESB, London Pride and HSB are regularly on sale alongside changing guests that might be Fuller’s seasonals – Wild River was on when I called – or third party brews from better known brewers like Arkells or Wychwood. Given the obvious cellar skills on show, it’s no surprise that the licensee holds a Fuller’s Master Cellarman accreditation and that the pub has been a fixture in the Good Beer Guide since the 1990s. A treasure.
National Rail Waddon, East Croydon, South Croydon Tram George Street Cycling LCN+ 23, links to 75, 222 Walking Link to Vanguard Way, Wandle Trail
 The George Shillibeer, London N7 London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
North London: Other locations – Holloway
Contemporary pub (Butcher & Barrel)
Carpenters Mews, North Road N7 9EF
T 020 3218 0083 w www.thegeorgeshillibeer.co.uk f shillibeers
Open 1100-2300 (0200 Fri, closed Sat-Sun). Children welcome.
Cask beer 5-6 (Fuller’s, changing often local guests), Other beer 4 keg, 10 bottles, Also 20 wines.
Food Upmarket pub grub, Outdoor Front terrace in yard, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Mon-Tue food promotions, Wed live jazz, Th quiz, Fri 80s DJs, big screen sport, board games, functions, weekend private hire, adjacent to theatre.
The wedge of London between Islington and Caledonian Road once flourished in the presence of the huge Metropolitan Cattle Market, which became a bric-a-brac and antiques market before vacating for Bermondsey just after World War II. With the market site partially rebuilt into a grim social housing estate and the rest becoming rather desultory parkland or industrial units, the area took on something of a decaying and marginal character until relatively recently.
Now the park with its surviving market clock tower has been done up, the estate is being regenerated and the Pleasance Theatre – an outpost of the famous Edinburgh Fringe venue – provides some cultural cred. The theatre occupies part of a large Victorian industrial development at the back of the market that was once a factory making horse drawn buses and later a depot owned by London General, one of the predecessors of Transport for London. Its conversion in the 1980s into the Busworks, a modern office and workshop complex, was an early sign of a turnaround for the area.
Also incorporated is a pub, the George Shillibeer, its name honouring the man who ran London’s first bus services, which meets the needs of local workers, theatregoers and people from further afield attracted by its offbeat charms. It’s a big barn of a place, its former industrial use clearly evident from the bare brick walls and high ceilings, but it’s well divided into several pleasant spaces on various mezzanines and raised floors. It’s become even more comfortable since being refurbished by Butcher and Barrel in Autumn 2011, and the beer range has notably improved too.
Fuller’s London Pride is the regular cask beer, while guests might come from smaller, more local outfits like By the Horns or Red Squirrel as well as the likes of Brains, Sharp’s or Thwaites. London Fields and sometimes Camden Town supply the keg beer alongside Anchor and Brooklyn, and there are a few bottles of interest too, from Cooper’s, Nils Oscar, St Peter’s and the like. A highlight in an unpromising area – although the background music can get a bit loud and it’s private hire only at weekends.
Insider tip. Weekend hires include a long running monthly latex and PVC party run by the London Fetish Fair – a somewhat radical alternative to drinking real ale in cardigan and sandals!
Underground Caledonian Road Cycling Links to LCN+ 6 7 14
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Cask  This pioneering new book explains what makes cask beer so special, and explores its past, present and future. Order now from CAMRA Books. Read more here.
London’s Best Beer  The fully updated 3rd edition of my essential award-winning guide to London’s vibrant beer scene is available now from CAMRA Books. Read more here.
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